


Perchance to Dream

by Gimmeran21



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 18:38:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimmeran21/pseuds/Gimmeran21
Summary: Patrick Jane's sleep.





	Perchance to Dream

**The Golden Dream**

Angela looked down at her golden man who was fast asleep and snoring slightly. She had never known anyone give themselves up to sleep in the way that Patrick did. He was like a cat in the intensity of his sleep but unlike felines he did not sleep with one ear pricked ready to wake up in an instant and he always claimed that he never dreamed although really what he was saying was that he didn’t remember his dreams.

It was a standing joke that any night intruders would be greeted by Angie wielding something heavy while Patrick would still be sleeping unaware. She was the one who got up in the night to tend to Charlotte. Although at first Angie had been inclined to suspect that Patrick was conning her just to get an undisturbed night’s sleep the longer they were together the more she realised that while Paddy played mind games with other people and made his living by lying he would never do that to his beloved wife and daughter. 

She had taken this rare moment of leisure to reflect on how lucky she was before she had to wake up her husband. He had a full day ahead of him, having to talk with his agent, meeting contacts and then preparing for the live TV show he was doing that evening. 

He woke up from a deep refreshing night’s sleep with his wife’s beautiful body wrapped round him. The sunlight poured in through the window as Angie made it clear what was on her mind and persuaded him that that was what he wanted as well.

**The Nightmare**

That was the last time that he remembered having a restful natural night’s sleep. When he had opened the door to the bedroom the next night he had closed the door on sleep. 

While he was in the psychiatric hospital they’d given him artificial sleep, the blessed drugs that stopped his thoughts going round and round on an endless treadmill. Without them he continually woke himself up with visions of smiley faces dripping blood and his wife and child’s butchered bodies. 

But as he improved mentally, in preparation for his discharge they had tapered off the drugs until he had no such props. He knew that he had to look as though his sleep pattern had improved so he used biofeedback to relax his breathing. Of course he did sleep but it was in short bursts interspersed with periods of lying half-awake with that last night replaying behind closed eyes. 

Once he had convinced them to release him he had gone back to his house, no longer a home. Angie’s and his bed had been taken away as evidence so he had bought a single mattress to sleep under the red smiley face. Or rather to lie under it as his penance. 

He had tried drinking himself to sleep but unfortunately had a good head for liquor and it took hours to get the desired result and of course in the morning he was fit for nothing. A hangover didn’t play well with the day job. Anyway the smell of drink was rather a giveaway and he didn’t like vodka. So he went to a tame doctor he knew from his show business days who advised him on the range of drugs he could use to give him the approximation of a good night’s sleep. The internet did the rest. 

He had to be careful that the sleeping drugs that he took regularly didn’t affect his work and did not give him slurred speech or make him woozy. Anyway he didn’t want to lose his ability to think clearly. He had rented a motel room so that at the end of a case he could take a personal day, go to the room, dose himself up and sleep for the day.

When he had started working for the CBI he got them to move the old leather couch from the archive room in the basement on the grounds that he thought better lying down. As he helped get the results for the team he thought they had just shrugged their shoulders mentally and let it go as yet another of Jane’s eccentricities. Despite his being the smartest person in the room he did have some blind spots and had not accounted for the fact that the team were quite perceptive. After all they were trained investigators. They knew that he didn’t like to sleep without people being somewhere around him even if they weren’t in the same room as him.

One morning Lisbon had come in at 5am to complete her ever-increasing paperwork and she looked over at her consultant who for once seemed to be sleeping soundly rather than just pretending to do so as he often did. She knew that he thought he’d fooled everyone but he didn’t know that on several occasions when she’d come in early she’d heard his distressed cries in what passed for his sleep. 

**The Island**

Red John was dead and he could try to build a life that did not have revenge as its main motive. He could sleep at last. God he was so tired! He would be able to catch up on the lost sleep of years. Stupid really and typically arrogant. 

When he had flown to the island he had take very little of the old life with him and that had included the sleeping pills which he knew he would no longer need. But he still could not sleep properly, he was antsy and felt ill all the time. His head had a dozen hammers beating through it and he felt shivery one minute and hot the next. He couldn’t concentrate and even mugful after mugful of tea did not soothe him. He walked round and round his room feeling worse and worse. Yes he dozed sometimes and then would wake himself up yelling and screaming. He was grateful for the night time noise and the sound of the off-key band that played in the local cantina to cover the sounds. 

As he started to come down from his adrenaline high it took him some time to realise that he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Nine years of regular use of the helpful pills had taken their toll and his body wasn’t about to heal itself without a fight. 

**The Peace**

Teresa looked down at her golden man who was fast asleep and snoring slightly. She had never known anyone give themselves up to sleep in the way that Patrick did. He was like a cat in the intensity of his sleep but unlike felines he did not sleep with one ear pricked ready to wake up in an instant. and he always claimed that he never dreamed although what he was really saying was that he didn’t remember his dreams.


End file.
